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Gospel: St.
Luke 24:1-10 (-11)
Alleluia
the Lord is Risen!
On
this Easter Day we focus on the central event in the history
of Christianity, the resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ,
Son of God. Each Easter Day we do this by hearing a particular
Gospel reading, and that reading varies. This year we have heard
the story of the women who go to what they think is going to
be a memorial service for their friend and Lord Jesus, and discover
what turns out to be the miracle of all time, an empty tomb,
grave clothes, the presence of angels who tell of Christ's resurrection.
Of course, the women are scared out of their wits.
Speechless.
But they are also ecstatic—they run and tell everyone who
will listen.
And
there our reading ends. It ends with the words ". . . (the
women) told this to the apostles." But had the reading gone
one verse more in this chapter of Luke's Gospel, it would have
ended with these words: "These
words seemed to the Apostles an idle tale, and they didn't believe it."
The
APOSTLES didn't believe it! The Apostles. Twelve men who later
went on to change the world forever, didn't believe the Good
News! I mention this because some of us have our own doubts some
of the time, and I wanted to make the point that if the twelve
most prominent Christians in the history of the world can doubt,
then it is okay for you or me to doubt and still be counted among
the faithful. In fact, it has been said that faith is committed
doubt.
But,
getting back to the Apostles: they had sat all the time since
the
execution, grieving and forlorn, desolate and despairing. When hearing the
news from the women—they literally thought it too good to be true. They did
not dare hope. They had forgotten everything Jesus had said about new life,
about how on the third day he would rise . . .with the power of the state,
he had been executed and for them that was the end.
Sometimes
when we see with our eyes and touch with our hands the fact of death
or failure or lost dreams, that for us is the end. But is
that not a fitting time to draw upon our belief? Or upon our desire to
believe? Is it not in the valleys of life that we must seek God and our
hope in God? Is the resurrection not powerful enough to enable us to say, "Easter is about life in the midst of death, of new possibilities in
the midst of despair. We may be in the tomb, but the resurrection is with us always."
It
is interesting that the resurrection can never be proved. If
it could be
proved it would require nothing of us for us to believe it. But as it is,
forever improvable, belief requires a measure of spiritual maturity
(which ironically we usually have as children, lose to some extent as we become
more sophisticated, and then must recover through the trials and weight of
real
life), and belief requires our desire to see good triumph over evil, and it
requires our wanting to believe.
We,
in our search for proof of the resurrection, can cite the empty
tomb, the grave clothes, the folks who testify that they saw Jesus
after he had been murdered. We can hear about the post-resurrection
change in Peter's very character and
courage. We can see the 2,000-year record of ordinary human beings, one of
whose natural characteristics is self-preservation and, if the truth be known,
self-centeredness, flocking to houses of worship all over the world to practice
servanthood, from those who risk their lives to those who empty water basins
at foot-washing on Maundy Thursday.
But,
these are
all circumstantial proofs of the resurrection at best.
Resurrection
is not something we can prove or sell to others with our usual logic.
Resurrection is something to believe in and to hope for. If
necessary it is something to hope that we will believe. Each of us, looking at
this evidence, must bring something of our own to the resurrection, which is
our inheritance at death, if it is also to be a reality during our life.
Life,
as one of my seminary professors used to say, drives us to our knees.
And
it is through suffering, through love that is wounded, it is
through
pain and the wisdom and compassion that pain brings, that we
find we bring to the Easter story what is needed for faith.
When
I was a child I thought the greatest things in the world were
material—red wagons, pistachio nuts, portable radios that were as big
as television sets today. At some point in my life I awoke one morning to know
that among the greatest things in the world are peace, love, reconciliation.
Now
mind you, I still like material things but I try not to worship them.
My
engagement with electronic miracles of the 21st century—such
as
state-of-the-art telephones, handheld organizers, flat-screen
computer
monitors—is a fact of my life. I think, however, at least
I hope, that I
have learned to "hold loosely" to even these beloved grown-up
toys, so that I can be mindful at any given moment what is really important
and what
is passing.
For
faith and Christ are a matter of values and priorities. And God
has made His greatest creation—folks like you and me, folks
NOT like you and me, all folks—God has made us the most
sacred, the most precious of all that exists—humanity is God's top priority.
Our
God-given capacity to feel, to love and to take on the pain of
others, are at the center of God's Creation.
If
we have lived and reflected much at all, we know, however, that
we have the freedom to live for others or to live only for ourselves.
With God's help, we can fulfill our potential to truly be, to
truly love, to truly care about others. John Powell says the
Glory of God is a human being fully alive. Jesus says I come
that you may have life and have it fully. And being fully alive
includes the kind of pain-induced wisdom and compassion for others
to which Christ in His suffering calls us as our Christian vocation.
If
we do not care for the powerless, the underdog, the victim, the
lonely, we cannot be all that God calls us to be. There is a
significant portion of our soul that never comes alive until
we give, until we sacrifice, until we are willing to feel the
pain of others. It is this breakthrough, this crossing over into
the richness of life that can only be found by alleviating pain
in others through allowing it to affect us: it is this conversion
that is resurrection in this life.
So,
my friends in Christ, rejoice in the Good News of His, and so
OUR
victory over death. And remember, that to experience the fruits of
resurrection in this life, this week, to know the richness and the quiet
inner hope that is there no matter what our circumstances—we must bring
to this great gift of resurrection, hands that are open to receive it and hearts
that are open to embrace others. Then we are truly living the risen life.
Alleluia!
Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! Amen.
Gospel:
Luke 24: 1-10
But
on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the
tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They
found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did
not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in
dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their
faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the
living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told
you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over
to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they
remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the
eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother
of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. NRSV
Copyright ©2001
The Rev. William A. Kolb
This
homily was delivered at Calvary
Episcopal Church, Memphis,
Tennessee, on April 15, 2001, Easter Sunday.
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